their falces,[1] which have the fang directed downwards, and move vertically parallel to one another. Thus when a victim is seized by one of the Territelariæ it receives a downward blow, while other spiders strike sideways, the falces moving in a horizontal or oblique direction. With very few exceptions this sub-order may also be known by the presence of four blotches of paler colour at the base of the abdomen underneath, indicating the position of four air-sacs, almost all, or indeed perhaps all, other spiders having but two.
Certain species of Territelariæ are the only spiders known to construct nests closed with a door, and these creatures must be admitted to rank among the first of Nature's handicraftsmen and inventors.
The geometrical webs of many common spiders are very beautiful structures, but these are for the most part only snares for prey, and not permanent dwellings, although the cocoons in which the eggs are placed are often most ingeniously contrived. Thus in the south we may sometimes find an inverted balloon of strong silk about an inch long attached to heath and other bushes, which, if examined during the winter, will be found to contain in its centre a case enclosing a mass of eggs about one-third the bulk of the entire cocoon. This inner case is shaped exactly like the outer, and both have a circular silk lid carefully closed, and the space between the two is filled with a dense mass of golden-brown silk, which acts no doubt as an excellent non-conductor. This cocoon is the work of Epeira fasciata, a species apparently only found in southern Europe.
- ↑ Sometimes called mandibles. One of these is represented, enlarged, at Fig. A 7. in Plate VII., p. 88.
